Previously
by Sparkling Amethyst
Summary: Bella Swan's first day at Forks High School in her junior year isn't the first day Edward Cullen laid eyes on her. He was able to control himself with his singer when even Emmett, at one point in his life, could not. He had to have experienced the burn in his throat before . . . and this is that time. My own little prequel to S. Meyer's Twilight. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: I don't own the Twilight Saga. All rights to go it's original author, Stephenie Meyer. **

**Edward's Point of View**

"C'mon, Edward." Alice, my sister-for-all-intents-and-purposes, elbowed me in the ribs with a force so hard that it would have broken a human's ribs. Fortunately, I wasn't human and neither was she, so she also went uninjured when I elbowed her back. She rolled her eyes. "You're not even paying attention to the movie. If _Jasper _was here, he would be paying attention."

I huffed. Of course he would be watching closely. He's her mate. It was his job to make Alice happy. "There's a reason Jasper went hunting with Emmett last-minute, Alice," I whispered.

"And that reason was?" she retorted quietly.

"Don't make me say it," I teased. "I don't want to crush your little heart."

"You don't care about my heart and you know it," she snorted, eyes still locked on the screen that was playing the latest chick-flick drama movie that had premiered. "Are you trying to say that Jasper lied to me about being thirsty so he wouldn't have to see this movie with me?"

I shrugged, bending down to murmur in her ear, "If the shoe fits, little sister. But _you _said it first."

She shot me a glare without turning her head, but said nothing. She knew I was right. Jasper had no interest in those movies. He only went because he wanted to see Alice happy. Or, more specifically, he _didn't _want to see her _un_happy.

On the large screen in front of me, a young woman was yelling at her father for banishing her love interest – the latest male heartthrob of the human population of the world. It, to me, seemed like a 1995 version of Shakespeare's_ Romeo and Juliet_, because the year 1995 had obviously needed another sappy romance movie with an unsatisfying ending. I had no idea why Alice wanted to ruin her mind with this silliness, but Jasper had begged me to take his place – something I was not going to tell my sister – and I had agreed regretfully. That meant that I had to sit and silently endure this torture.

When the tormenting ended, Alice and I left the theater with the rest of the humans who had watched that showing. The streets of Port Angeles were as busy as always, which shocked me for the small numbers of populations in the towns surrounding it. The closet big city was Seattle, and surely there were movie theaters there that people could go to instead of traveling all the way to this small town.

"So, Carlisle says we're not staying here long, right?" Alice asked out of the blue.

I looked down at her, frowning. "Yes," I said. "We're just here because Esme wanted us to check on the house, remember?" I paused. "I don't know why we don't just sell this house, too. We've sold all of the other ones we've lived in over the past ninety years.''

"I'm excited," she exclaimed as she skipped alongside me. "Jasper's taking me to _Paris _while Esme builds the new house in . . . well, wherever we decide to live next."

"And that's why you don't want us to stay here long?" I guessed. "You want us to relocate as soon as possible so you can ditch our family." I was half-teasing. Alice was the little sister I'd never had. We teased each other and laughed with each other and played chess – it was usually just a matter of who forfeited first in those games, what with my mind reading skills and her psychic visions – and I would be lonely without her around. I didn't have a mate. I had no one to hang around with. Emmett was always busy with Rose and Carlisle always found himself a job at a hospital around town to keep up our 'family' look.

Alice _tsk_ed at me. "I'm not abandoning the family. _Rosalie _thought it sounded like fun. Esme, too."

"You're deserting me."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"I am not."

"You are."

"I _am not_!" she squealed, attracting the attention of some people who were walking in the opposite direction on the sidewalk.

"I'm not arguing with you," I sighed, and waited for a few seconds, letting her think that the topic had been dropped, before whispering, "But you definitely are."

"Edward!" I saw in her mind that she was going to punch me in the gut and successfully dodged it, but didn't escape quickly enough to avoid the fist in my gut. It didn't hurt.

"Alice!" I mocked, laughing. "Okay, okay, I'm done. So how about you explain that movie to me."

"What is there to explain?"

"Well, that _is _one of my complaints, yes, because there was absolutely no rising action in the plot at all," I muttered, and she threatened to hit me again by raising her fist and waving it in the air, "but I was going to ask about the love triangle that lasted for about three seconds."

She sighed, annoyed. "What _about _it?"

"Do you think it was originally part of the script, or did the director just throw it in there to try to add some drama into the drama-less plot?"

"It had drama," she mumbled. "And, no, the director couldn't just . . . _throw it in there_."

"I beg to differ," I provoked, but just as I was about to add another sentence, I sucked in a breath and froze.

My throat was sent into an uproar of pain. It was the sweetest, most delicious-smelling scent that I'd ever smelt. My instincts took over my senses automatically, my eyes searching frantically for the source of the aroma. I bared my teeth as my eyes failed to find the unlucky human who had that beautiful scent.

Alice heard the growl as it built up in my chest and her head snapped up. "What in the world are you _doing_?" she hissed, clawing at my arm.

I couldn't stop searching for that scent, even though I knew what would happen when I found the source. I would kill that poor human. My mind knew I shouldn't, that I was out of control, but the monster that lived inside me didn't care, and so neither did my rational side.

I looked all around me. To my left, a brunette woman was standing with a blonde man, balancing a toddler on her hip and eating an ice cream cone. She wasn't my victim, and neither was her child. The man was also clear. To my right, a group of teenage boys were gathered and leaning against the building next to us. They were smoking cigarettes and probably a little of something else, but none of them had the scent I was smelling and so I didn't bother to pay any extra attention. My eyes zeroed in on the backs of the heads of the people who were walking up ahead of us. The scent might be a trail that one of them left. I stared intensely, because observing a human who was farther away helped me to pick up the scent that they might have left behind. It was easier to make connections that way.

This was impossible. There were too many people, and the scent was so faint . . . the human had to have passed by this spot minutes ago. They might not even be in my wide line of sight anymore. Perhaps he or she had gotten in a car a little ways ahead, or journeyed into a department store. Everyone was talking, and thinking, and I was going insane, but I just wanted that blood . . . I needed it. I felt like I would die if I didn't get it.

At the reminder my brain gave me about my mind reading ability, all of the thoughts of the people around me flooded into my head.

_. . . never have my brand of pancake mix. That is so frustrating. _

_ . . . late, again! I swear, I'm going to break up with him this time. This is ridiculous. I look like an idiot, just standing here, waiting. Everyone knows I'm getting stood up. _

_ These shoes are painful. Why did I buy them? Oh, God, that crack almost broke my ankle . . ._

_ Why isn't Jeremy answering my phone calls? He _just _texted me two minutes ago._

_ She's lying. Oh, my God, is that a lie. That's the biggest lie I've ever heard. Does she think I believe that? Is if Chelsea would _ever _lower her standards enough to sleep with _Greg . . .

"Edward," Alice snapped. I noticed that I had stopped walking and that we were now standing in the middle of the busy sidewalk while irritated humans stepped around us. Alice was yanking on my arm, trying to pull me away from the sidewalk, but I wasn't budging. She wasn't strong enough to move me. "Edward, stop this! What's gotten into you? What do you smell?" She lowered her voice and sped up her speed so that the humans wouldn't know that she was speaking. "Is there another vampire? Why can't I detect him?"

I snarled at her. "There isn't another vampire! Just the most _delicious _scent in the entire world and I _have to have it_!" I was a stranger to myself, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I wanted to care, but I just . . . didn't.

Out of the corner of my eye, Alice's eyes widened. She gasped, and her phone was at her ear a second later. "Emmett!" she said frantically. "Edward's lost it – he's gone crazy about a scent he's smelled! His eyes won't stop searching for it . . . for the human . . ." She was panicking, unsure of what she would do if I were to attack a human right there in the busy streets. _I can't hold him back . . . we'll have to kill the whole town . . . they'll know the secret! None of them can know our secret . . . They can't know about vampires . . ._

I heard Emmett's voice over the phone, also frantic. _"Distract him. Jasper and I are on our way."_

I didn't even have the thought process to wonder when they'd arrived back from their hunting trip. I vaguely felt Alice tugging at my arm and scraping her nails down my shoulder, trying to get my attention in any way that she could, but nothing would distract me from that scent. It was taking me too long to detect it.

Now, the person to my left was a man who appeared to be the height of a basketball player, but not muscular at all. He looked at me, and as his piercing blue eyes met mine, I inhaled his scent. Nope, it wasn't him either.

I snapped my head to the right. The only person there was Alice, who was snapping her fingers in front of my face, trying to act absolutely human, but her patience was wearing off.

Forward. The human had to go forward. Now that my senses had analyzed the scent further, I knew it belonged to a female. My eyes immediately began to automatically pass over the males in the crowds surrounding me. I felt my feet begin to move forward quickly as I received a purpose, a hint from my brain. I couldn't control myself. It was scary, but I didn't want to stop. Even the rational side of me didn't want to stop.

I sucked in another breath and realized that the human was not alone. Another female scent was twisted in with my victim's. Perhaps it was a friend's, or a mother's. An aunt, or cousin.

_Victim. _I had a victim. I wasn't used to using that word, but it slipped into my mind as my thoughts went in every direction.

Suddenly, I was aware that Alice was shouting at me with her thoughts. _You need to control yourself, Edward! Look at yourself! You're _hunting _in the middle of a crowded street!_

I wasn't hunting, I noted to myself. If I had been, every human around me would have been dead because my instincts would simply take over and force me to kill them all. They were passing me by, coming and going, none the wiser. I wasn't hunting.

_Edward,_ Alice thought. _Listen to me. You'll regret it after you find her, after you kill her. She's not like the heartless humans you killed seventy years ago. She's innocent, not a serial killer, not a rapist, not a drug dealer. Smell that scent, Edward. _

I was. I was smelling it.

_That's a pure scent._

I hated it when she was right.

_ She's innocent and pure. She's probably young, too. She's got a whole life ahead of her. Are you really going to let your control slip and take that away from her? She could be the next Einstein. Are you going to take what she has to offer away from the world? _

I'd been so consumed with Alice's thoughts, with her successful distraction of the matter at hand, that I didn't notice that Emmett and Jasper had arrived until I felt both of them clamp down on my biceps. They started towing me backwards, but they moved calmly and at a human pace so that the innocents around us wouldn't get curious.

I let them drag me along for a few seconds, playing along calmly, not saying a word, letting them think that I was going to surrender, and when I felt them both relax their hard grips for just a _second_, I fought. I screeched so loudly that the fragile human ears of the humans around me wouldn't even notice it.

"Let me go!" I snarled. "Both of you! I _have _to have that scent! You don't understand it!" I stopped, an idea popping into my head. I appealed to Jasper, who was on my right. "_You _do, Jasper. _You _understand it. You know what it's like . . . to have that urge . . . you feel it. You feel it right now, don't you? With all of these humans . . . let me go, and I'll share!" If just _one _of them released me, I could easily fight the other one off.

When Jasper didn't even acknowledge that I had spoken, I began to panic. Of course he wouldn't be tempted to help me. Alice was right next to him and he would never agree to cheat on our animal-blood-vegetarian-vampire diet in front of her. I sniffed at the air, pressing on their grips on my arm, trying to break free. The air now held nothing of the human female's scent and I grew worried. The scent that was trailing behind me, in the opposite direction that I was being towed, would soon disappear and I would lose all hope of finding her again. I yanked harder, fought tougher, not caring if the people around me noticed or not. I pulled and pushed and twisted until I felt my armpits begin to crack and pull away from my torso, preparing to be detached from my body, and I knew I had to stop because I couldn't hold onto my prey without my arms.

"Give it up, Edward." It was the first time Emmett had spoken to me since his arrival. "That's enough. You know I've never forgiven myself for killing my singers – both of them – and you'll be even more full of grief."

My singer. My singer?

Oh . . .

What?

Oh. Yes, of course. I hadn't realized it, but yes – that scent was to me as Emmett's singer's scent had been to him. I swallowed, and when I spoke, my voice was hoarse from the burning pain that was still scorching my throat. "I'll be fine. I just . . . _I want it_. I want her. I just . . . just _one taste _. . ."

"Nope," Jasper mumbled. "Not gonna happen. You don't need to be like me. Our family has enough to worry about with _my _shaky control. We don't need _you _to spiral down to my level after seventy years of animal blood only."

As they shoved me roughly into the back of Carlisle's car that was waiting five blocks away from where I'd first smelt the scent and twelve blocks away from the spot I'd traced the scent to after smelling it, I gasped one more time. I was searching for the scent one last time, but there was nothing in the air but the natural damp humidity that we'd all grown used to when we had once lived in Forks, Washington.

**…**

Allowing me to go to Seattle three years later was a big mistake that Alice made. Esme and Rosalie wanted to redecorate the house already, because we were moving again and wanted to sell our current house, and so they wanted to go to a very prestigious store in Seattle. They hadn't forgotten about my singer's location just three years prior to that time. They just weren't thinking of it, and I wasn't going to remind them. I hoped that I would have the chance to go and revisit Forks again while we were that close. I would have to be sneaky about it, but I knew I could step away secretly. That scent had driven me crazy the entire time I was away, and I'd wanted to come and find it for so long, but if I made the choice to go get her, Alice would have a vision and I would get caught.

This wouldn't be a planned choice. It would happen whenever the time was right. I didn't know when my chance would come, and that would be enough to keep Alice in the dark until I was already too far gone for her to stop me.

"What do you think?" I heard Esme ask Carlisle. "The burgundy pillow cases, or the dark green ones? I want this to be a more . . ._ forest _themed house."

"Where are we moving to, anyway?" Rose questioned, holding Emmett's hand and reaching over to brush her hand across the silk of the pillows in Esme's hands.

"We're not sure yet," Esme responded. "Did you guys have any ideas?"

"Is it very sunny in Paris?" she asked, flashing a smile.

I chuckled to myself, silently stepping back away from their semi-circle to begin distancing myself. I hadn't made the choice yet, not really. I wasn't leaving yet. I reached up to admire a sample display of a curtain-and-bedspread matching set, pretending to be interested.

To my right, the conversation continued. I heard it just as loud as I had been two seconds ago when I was right next to them. "Maybe we should try out Antarctica," Alice suggested. "There's next to no human life there at all. No temptation for Jasper, and the random sunny days won't affect us at all. We won't have to deal with any human problems. It'll just be our coven. Maybe the Denalis would want to -"

"No," I snapped. "I'm not dealing with Tanya every day with no distractions whatsoever. Not happening."

"Edward's right," Emmett mumbled. "Eleazar gets on my nerves. He thinks he's so . . . _strong_." He grimaced, looking down at his shoes.

I chuckled. "There you have it. The Denali coven stays away."

"Oh, come on now, Edward," Esme reprimanded me. "Just because you and Tanya never exactly saw . . . eye-to-eye –"

"We never saw eye-to-eye because she wanted a romantic relationship with me and I wasn't interested," I interrupted. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jasper wandering on my left side, farther away from the family than I was. He was unknowingly blocking my path. I cursed in my mind. _There goes my chance; for now, at least. _I stopped my advances towards the nearest back exit. "I want to meet my mate, Esme. I won't waste my time with someone who isn't."

"And you have that right," Esme allowed, her hands tossing the pillow lightly back and forth, "but I still think that you shouldn't avoid her forever. The Denali coven is a good ally for us. They're like us, remember. They're the only other official coven that survives like us."

"We don't need them," Rosalie sneered, but she wasn't on my side. Her thoughts were centered on how Emmett's attention would be diverted with his adventures with Eleazar and the way Kate flaunted herself around him. She hated Kate for that reason. She'd never acknowledged that Rose was Emmett's mate in every sense of the world.

"Don't be like that," Alice mumbled. "You're so spiteful. It's your husband you should have the grudge with."

"Me?" Emmett's voice rose with his shock. "What? What did _I _do?"

"You know _exactly _what you did!" Rosalie yelled, attracting the attention of the nearby humans who were also shopping in the store we were in.

"Oh, do I, now?" he challenged.

_Not a smart choice, Emmett, _Jasper thought.

I smirked, meeting his eyes, and nodded.

The family was then consumed with the need to keep Rosalie from giving away our secret in her fit of anger. I carefully read all of their minds.

_. . . distracted him right when I was about to get his opinion on the pillows,_ Esme thought, referring to Carlisle. She wanted his view more than anyone's, but what she didn't know is that he'd agree to anything if it made her happy, meaning if those pillows made her happy, he'd deal with them, even if he hated them.

_I hope this doesn't turn into a scene,_ Carlisle worried.

Alice's mind was completely off of the topic at hand. _Jasper still hasn't made the choice of what he's getting me for our anniversary . . . _

Jasper's mind was locked on the argument, surprisingly. He was the only one listening to Rose and Emmett yell at each other at a speed that humans couldn't pick up.

I read each of their minds cautiously, waiting for the perfect moment. All of them had to be flawlessly distracted and not paying attention to their surroundings for me to be able to slip up. And I had to make the choice, consciously, with enough space between Alice and I that would keep her from being able to stop me.

I took a few steps backwards, placing Jasper in front of me now. I worked to keep my emotions calm and normal. Jasper could feel the feelings that everyone was having, and if he caught a . . . _taste_, you could say, of my anxiousness to get to Forks and find my singer, _he _would become a wall that I would have to go around, as well. I spun around so that I was now walking forwards instead of backwards.

Two more steps. Stop, I told myself. Look at the purple sheets that were hanging on a hook to my left. That's enough. Two more steps. Look at the paint chips that were on display. Reach out to touch one, put on a show that you're just browsing, I told myself. That's enough. Three steps, now. Glance across the aisle at _more _things for decorating a house. Don't stop, now. Keep going. Three steps. Pause. One step. Pause. Two steps. Stop, I told myself. Look to your left. Stare for a moment. Okay, now look to your right. Frown, like you don't like it. Send a casual glance back at your family, I told myself.

Now, there was about twenty feet between me and my family, and none of them seemed to notice that I had moved from where I'd been standing next to Emmett.

It was now or never.

I ran.

…

I ran. And ran. It was entirely possible for Alice to have seen something about me going back Forks. It was entirely possible that my family was following me, chasing me. They'd be furious with me after I killed my singer, but they'd forgive me just as they'd forgiven Jasper through all of his slip-ups.

…

Forks was a very small town. It didn't take me long to get there from Seattle, what with my vampire speed and agility. My heart almost started beating again when I saw the _Welcome to Forks! _sign up ahead of me. That would never happen, of course. That was strictly a hyperbole.

I was currently scurrying through the town, sucking in quick gasps of air, hoping to catch a whiff of the beautiful scent that was my singer. She had to be around her somewhere. Forks, Washington that wasn't a vacation spot, and neither was Port Angeles. She had to live here. Port Angeles was where I'd smelt her, yes, but that wasn't a town that had many houses, and her scent _had _been heading in this direction.

A small part of my brain thought, _what if she was just visiting family? Or what if her parents were into road trips? _The scent had belonged to a very young female – she was probably around seven years old, and that was last year, and so now she would have been eight.

_An eight-year-old. _I wasn't proud of what I was doing – don't think that I was. I was a monster, a soulless creature with no heart. But that scent – oh, that _scent_! It was too much for me to handle. I couldn't fight it. I'd tried; I'd tried so hard, but it called to me. _She _called to me . . . this human girl, she called to me . . . _Edward. Come and get me, Edward. I'm so fragile and innocent, and my blood is delicious. Come and find me, Edward._

My cell phone rang. I chuckled. It was about time. I lifted it to my ear with a smirk on my face. "Yes, Alice?"

"How could you do this, Edward?" she screamed at me. "How could you? How could you just _leave _us like that? Did you have that plan all along? To leave, to come find that girl? Is that all you've been thinking about?"

"Silly Alice," I teased, "if I had been planning it, you would have seen it."

"Is it worth it, Edward?" she demanded. "Is it worth all this trouble?"

"Oh, dear sister," I laughed, "it was no trouble at all."

I heard the sound of the phone being passed along, and then Emmett's voice filled my ear. "How'd you do it?" he yelled. "How? How did your scent just disappear? Did you have a car waiting? Is that it? You've got a partner in crime? You had to have some sort of transportation for your scent to just . . . cut off like that!"

"Very good," I congratulated sarcastically. Of course I'd had transportation. Not for very long, of course. Running was faster, but I had to make sure that they wouldn't be able to pick up my trail. They knew where I was now, obviously, but it had worked. It had stalled them. "I took a bus, actually. It was a slow bus. Not fun. But it did the trick."

_"We have to start running," _Esme said in the background.

_"Let's go,"_ Jasper agreed.

_"We'll never make it,"_ Alice cried, but I heard the wind blowing past the phone as Emmett ran.

"Carlisle's hurt with you, Edward," Emmett snarled. "He's upset. He won't even talk to Esme. He doesn't understand why you can't control yourself with this girl. If you kill her, I can't guarantee that you'll still be allowed to stay with us. Know that."  
"I do," I said, but I hadn't until then. That wasn't enough to stop me, though. I would take being alone over not tasting that blood. I'd been alone before.

Emmett was silent for a minute. "I don't even know you anymore." The line went dead.

I shoved my phone back into my pocket and took another deep breath. Still nothing. I turned on my heel, deciding to go back to the place that I'd first smelt the scent.

I ran to Port Angeles, keeping myself under the cover of the forest trees that lined the road. I could feel the phone vibrating in my pocket, but no one outside of my coven had my number, and so I didn't bother to pick it up. I was close, now. Too close. And if I wasted my time by falling victim to their attempts at distraction, they'd be here to stop me before I could get a taste of that _blood_, and that wasn't acceptable.

And then it happened. A small black car with its window's rolled down passed, going the opposite direction of Port Angeles. Blowing gently yet swiftly out of the car was the scent that I hadn't been able to get out of my nostrils for a year, it seemed. I stopped abruptly, smashing myself into the nearest tree to come to a complete halt. My upper lip curled up to expose my teeth instinctively while my eyes locked on the little brown-haired girl sitting in a purple car seat in the back of that car.

And then I was following them.

…

They lived closer to the eastern border of Forks. Not _on _the border, but close.

I stood in the cover of the woods, again, watching them as they parked their car and got out. A man who I'd seen before in this town but didn't know the name of helped her out of her car seat and closed the door behind her. I was close enough to watch and listen to their conversation.

It appeared that the little girl didn't live there with the man – was he her father? – because he pulled a small pink suitcase out of the back. "I'm just so excited you're here, Bells," the man said. "I was afraid your mother wouldn't let – uh, your room's still all . . . girl-ed up. I didn't touch anything . . . the way your mother . . . left it."

Ah, so this man was her father, and her mother had left him. She must have been staying the summer. "Is it still purple?" the little girl asked in a soprano baby-voice.

"It absolutely is," her father told her.

I made the choice to wait until her father was thoroughly distracted before making my move into the house. I watched carefully as the man carried the bags into the house with his daughter trailing behind. I chucked when she stumbled and fell on her behind into the grass. She was . . . cute. A cute kid.

_But not cute enough_, the monster in my soul whispered.

…

"Bella," her father called sometime later. "Do you like pizza, sweetie?"

I was perched in a tree, peeking in the window that led to the girl's room – to Isabella's room. She was sitting on her bed, putting a brush through her hair, acting utterly like a teenager. She looked up at him. "Sure."

He nodded. "Okay. Cheese?"

"Mushroom," she corrected. _What? _What kind of eight-year-old liked _mushrooms _on her pizza? How odd. Perhaps there was more to this girl than I'd thought.

_No there isn't_, the monster growled. _Stop making excuses for yourself to _not _kill her. _

Her dad frowned, mumbled, "Okay, then," and left the room. I focused in on his mind. _Well, Renee always _did _say she was diverse. _

I leaned forward, gripping the trunk of the tree as I tried to get a better view of the little girl. She was humming a song and brushing her hair, breathing softly with a solid heartbeat. I looked around her room. There were no dolls or toys that I'd grown to be familiar with when around girls her age. Instead, there were books and CD cases and not a stuffed animal in sight. No, there was one stuffed animal – it was a raggedy, white little dog, sitting next to her on her bed.

I stared at her face, listening to her mind. I frowned and listened harder.

_Silence_. What? How was that possible? In all of my eighty years as a vampire, I hadn't ever come across a human whose mind I couldn't read . . .

I focused in on her again, and still, there was nothing. There was absolutely nothing. How strange . . . how odd . . . how . . . peculiar.

This girl wasn't like the other little girls that I'd met, seen, observed. She was different. She was serious, she was . . . innocent. She had her whole life ahead of her.

_Shame._

I closed my eyes. Alice was right – killing her would not only deny her the right to grow up and have a full life, but it would deny her family the right to watch her live, and it would deny the world of her brilliance.

_Impasse. _

And then, I heard their running – my family. They had arrived and were fleeing towards me at their fastest pace. I just stood there. I'd waited too long, but I was happy I'd done it. That girl didn't deserve to die. That girl _definitely _didn't deserve to die because of a _vampire_. So I let them come.

I kept my eyes on the little girl inside that house, who was now reading a book about astronomy, even as I felt Emmett and Jasper's hands clench down on my arms as Alice clung to my waist. I watched her until I couldn't see her anymore, as my family pulled and yanked me away from her, away from my singer. As they drew me back from the edge of the waterfall of human blood that I'd been so close to falling over.

…

"That new girl is here," Emmett said conversationally. Lunch had just started. It had been nine years since that day, and we were back living in Forks. Esme was just too attached. The little girl that was my singer was nowhere in this town. Alice had thoroughly checked, and we'd been living here happily for about two years.

"Is she?" I asked. I'd noticed, of course. The boys had been thinking of her all day – wondering what she'd look like, if she'd be interested in dating them. It wasn't often that 'fresh meat' was introduced to the population around here, in their minds. Such pigs, human males were.

Alice eyed me seriously, anxiously. "Her name is Bella."

My head snapped up from where I'd been staring at my hands, twined together on the ugly green cafeteria table. "Is that so?" That was the first I'd heard of her name.

Jasper cleared his throat. "Coincidence," he said.

_"Who are they?" _

_ "Who? Them? Oh. They're the Cullen siblings." _

I looked over when one of the teenage girls named Jessica Stanley said my name acidly in her thoughts, but instead of meeting _her _eyes, I was met with the biggest brown doe eyes that I'd ever seen. And framing the face that was completed with those brown eyes was a cascade of brown, flowing hair. I sucked in a breath impulsively as my mind was flashed back to that day, nine years ago, in that tree, watching Isabella with her books and her hair brush and her differences from other little girls.

I gripped underneath the table as my focus made the connection.

_My Isabella. _

Alice gasped.

* * *

**A/N - What did you think about this Edward? Insane? Crazy? Opposite of Canon-Edward? Or did you see some of Stephenie Meyer's Edward in him in some places? I'm curious about this, because I tried to work multiple personalities into him in this one-shot. **

**I chose to ignore the way Stephenie Meyer approaches the topic of Edward's first sighting of Bella in **_**Midnight Sun**_** because, as she expressed on her official website, she didn't want people to read the partial draft that way because it wasn't ready to be read yet – even though I have read the whole thing . . . :/ . Plus, the way the Cullens spoke to each other about her didn't quite fit with my plot in this one-shot. But Stephenie Meyer wrote Edward's POV so much better than I could ever. Once again, all rights go to her. **

** Please leave me your thoughts in a review! **

**Thank you for reading! **


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